I HAVE A STORY

When I first left home, I recall the overwhelming sense of freedom I suddenly had – I could do what I wanted when I wanted and go where I wanted without having to say when I would return. The possibilities seemed endless. Yet not long after the initial feeling of independence and liberty, I began to experience a strange yearning to return to the more familiar place of my growing up. But, like finding an old pair of slippers and putting them on, when I finally did go back ‘home’ it felt familiar and comfortable, as well as weirdly different. Whilst so much remained the same, I had changed, and things had moved along in my absence. There could never be a return back to how it once was.

We inhabit our lives rather like we inhabit a story – we are caught up in the narrative and journey along, swept away by the unfolding tale, the unexpected twists and turns. That is the thing about stories – they are not simply static and held suspended in time, rather they move and are dynamic. And we are changed through them and by them.

JESUS HAS A STORY

Luke places Jesus returning to Nazareth, the place of his childhood, at the start of his wider ministry. Jesus steps back into the familiarity of home, where part of his own story took place. The Jewish people are a people firmly rooted in God’s story, and the retelling of it in the synagogue is an example of how important it was for the Hebrew people to remind themselves of their place in that unfolding story.

But when Jesus reads from the prophet and declares that ‘today the scriptures have been fulfilled in your hearing’, he places himself at the heart of the story – he has changed from the young boy that grew up in the town, and in turn he is heralding a change for all God’s people.

WE SHARE A STORY

As people of faith, we get to participate in God’s story too. The Bible tells much of God’s story, yet it is incomplete. We are the books that come afterwards. But like all stories, the subsequent chapters are shaped by the ones before. This story is our story. We are people of the book.

Paul refers to the Scriptures, the holy books available to him, the Old Testament, as something he lived from: ‘such things were written in the Scriptures long ago to teach us’. For Paul, he inhabited the Scriptures much like we inhabit a story. The Scriptures, for him, were not simply a history book or a reference document. Yes, they described the relationship between God and his people since the beginning, but there was more than a simple retelling of what had happened. Paul understood Scripture to be the very words of God. Old, yes, but not out of date.

This living word remains the same for us in the here and now. It is where we witness God breaking in. it is where we see firsthand how Jesus steps into the story and claims it for his own. It is where the Christ is revealed and where we discover God’s all-inclusive radical and transforming love.

THE STORY IS FOR NOW

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor who was imprisoned by the Nazis and killed by them. In 1941, whilst in a prison camp, he wrote to a friend and asked ‘who is Jesus Christ for us today?’ Amidst the unfolding story of evil all around him in Europe at the time, his search to connect with the wider story of God’s love for the world through Christ drove him ever deeper into God’s story. And this question remains as relevant today as it was then.

THE STORY CONNECTS US

In Romans, St Paul reminds us that the Scriptures offer us a hope. By seeing God’s story told over time, we can be hope-filled by Scripture’s encouragement. We are connected together in this story by God’s grace, both those of us who are weak and those of us who are stronger. We are called together to rise as God’s continuing Church here in our time. Empowered by the Spirit we join in with the story of Scripture, the story of God. Called to continue the mission that Jesus himself was called to, so ‘that together [we] may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.’